Driver seriously injured after car crashes into Fort Washington auto parts store

A car slammed into the front of Advance Auto Parts in Fort Washington, sending the driver to the hospital and forcing Prince George’s County firefighters into a response they first treated as a possible collapse.

Crews were called around 4:15 p.m. Sunday, May 3, to the store at 958 E. Swan Creek Road in the Olde Forte Village Shopping Center. When firefighters arrived, they found a Hyundai up over the curb and into the building’s front, a sudden intrusion that turned a regular shopping-center scene into an emergency response.

Medics pulled the driver from the vehicle and transported him to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The crash left open questions about the condition of the storefront itself, but the initial collapse call underscored how quickly a vehicle strike can be mistaken for structural damage when crews are first dispatched.

The location adds to the concern. Olde Forte Village sits at the intersection of Indian Head Highway, also known as MD Route 210, and East Swan Creek Road, where drivers, shoppers and delivery traffic converge near one of Fort Washington’s busiest commercial corridors. The center is anchored by Safeway and sits next to Fort Washington Hospital Medical Center, putting the crash in the middle of a retail and medical strip that sees steady daily traffic.

Advance Auto Parts is one of several businesses in the center, and a vehicle hitting its entrance can affect far more than one storefront. A crash like this can disrupt employees trying to reopen the space, customers entering nearby shops, and traffic moving through the parking lot and access roads. In a center where cars park close to the front doors, even a single driver losing control can expose a wider vulnerability in the layout.

The cause of the crash remained under investigation. For Fort Washington, the incident was another reminder that the parking lots and curb cuts around neighborhood shopping centers can become danger points in seconds, especially along a corridor as busy as East Swan Creek Road and Indian Head Highway.